


It's just a vacation to a house in the woods, what could go wrong? (A Lot.)

by smalldreamer



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Implied Relationships, Other, and elias bouchard for that matter oops, gender neutral reader, marriage proposal(?), probably ooc peter lukas, they/them pronouns for Original Characters, this is completely based off of a dream i had MONTHS ago
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:02:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29667009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalldreamer/pseuds/smalldreamer
Summary: You’ve worked for Peter Lukas for two years now. Nothing too big, basically just typing up reports and handling a certain Beholder whenever he tries to reach out. You haven't spoken to anyone outside of work in a good while, which is why when Peter suggests that you and your friends go on a weekend holiday to one of his houses in the middle of a forest, you just stare at him, completely baffled.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Original Character(s), Peter Lukas/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	It's just a vacation to a house in the woods, what could go wrong? (A Lot.)

**Author's Note:**

> HiHi!! This is the first fic I've ever published ? So I'm sorry if its a little rough. This is completely based off of a dream I had back in July 2020, and then got pressured to actually write it. But uh, enough here, I hope you enjoy it :-)

You’ve worked for Peter Lukas for two years now. Nothing too big, basically just typing up reports and handling a certain Beholder whenever he tries to reach out. You know that Peter is training you to become a new avatar of the Lonely. You’ve been making great progress, too! At least Peter seems to think so. It was hard at first, leaving your friends behind. You’ve known these two since you were five, and now your boss expected you to just leave them behind for the benefit of his God. You didn’t think you could, yet it’s been a good year and a half since you’ve even called one of them. That’s why when Peter suggests that you and your friends go on a weekend holiday to one of his houses in the middle of a forest, you just stare at him, completely baffled. 

“What do you think?” Peter asks, one of those patented Peter Smiles plastered on his face. It doesn’t seem to be one of malice, or one that would show that there was some deeper meaning to this whole house in the woods thing, just one of the smiles he puts on when he isn’t used to being around actual people again. 

“I.. I would love to, but I’m not sure if they would even want to go. I haven’t been very.. responsive to any texts, I haven’t even called them in over a year.” You stutter out. Which, yes, this was true, but your friends also know that that's just how you are. You’ve never been good at responding to texts, and you’re horribly awkward over the phone, despite their best efforts to get you used to FaceTime. 

“All for good reason.” The smile hasn’t left Peter’s lips. You shift your weight from your right leg to your left because there really isn’t any way to answer that. It’s a statement, not really anything to comment on, not that Peter would particularly care if you answered or not. 

He looks at you again, expectantly. You still haven’t answered him, just avoided the question. 

“Uh.. Yeah. Yes, I’ll call them as soon as I can. Thank you for letting me do this.” You say. Peter just nods and heads out of the room, leaving you alone. 

And so you called your friends. They were both absolutely ecstatic to hear from you again and kept trying to get information about your personal life out of you before you could even ask if they wanted to hang out. When they finally shut up long enough for you to ask, you thought you were going to die from the sheer amount of joy you could damn near _feel_ through the phone. 

“So let me get this straight,” Danny started, “Your boss is just... letting you use one of his houses? To hang out with us?”

“Yeah, it sounds kinda sus,” Leigh continued, “I know he’s rich from what you told us when you first started working for him, but.... A whole house JUST for an employee and their friends? I dunno..”

Both of them had a point. They didn’t know Lukas like you did, and you hadn’t been there to tell them like you should have. 

“Trust me, it’s just because he’s worried about me. Probably? Whatever, the small things don’t really matter. Do you want to hang out in a forest mansion or what?” 

A very strong (and loud) “HELL YEAH” comes from the phone in both of their voices. Looks like you’ll need to get packed. 

  
  


You get packed up and throw your Switch and your childhood teddy bear in for good measure. Peter had told you that he would send all luggage to the house for you and your friends so you wouldn’t be so cramped in the car. Speaking of which, he’s having all three of you driven to the house by one of his own personal drivers. You suppose it’s just for privacy.

Danny and Leigh are already in the car by the time it arrives at your apartment building. The second you open the door they are all over you in a smothering hug. You accept your fate and hug back. It’s nice to be around them again.. You really did miss them. 

The whole ride out into the middle of the woods you dodge questions and end up getting them to talk about what’s going on in their lives. Danny reports that they’ve been at college working on a pre-med degree while Leigh says that they’ve been student teaching at your old school. 

Just as you’re in the middle of conversation, the car stops in the middle of the road. The driver gets out and opens the door for the three of you as you step out. You’re... in the middle of the woods.

The driver smiles politely and points into the woods. “Keep walking for about a mile that way and you can’t miss it.” They get back into the car and drive away, leaving you, Leigh, and Danny alone in the middle of the road. 

They look at you, and you just shrug. “Privacy?” They shrug too, but neither of them look too particularly happy with that answer. 

Without really any other choice, the three of you head off into the woods, side by side by side. It only takes about half an hour to reach a huge mansion in the middle of the woods. It looks abandoned, and there is no driveway to be seen. It’s the only house around and you didn’t take a wrong turn, because you didn’t turn. 

“Are you sure this is it? It looks like it hasn’t been used in _years_.” Leigh asks. 

“Mr. Lukas had this house built for when he and Mr. Bouchard wanted to get away from people for a while. From what he’s told me, Mr. Bouchard was never big on going on the Tundra, but Mr. Lukas doesn’t like being in public. The house is basically meant to not be seen.” You respond. Danny just nods and you walk up the stairs to the huge, dark doors and open them. 

It is _definitely not_ abandoned. The three of you enter into a grand foyer with a huge staircase that goes up three floors. Everything is in some shade of blue or grey. The walls are a muted, bleak grey while the long, running carpets are a more blueish grey. The three of you split up to claim floors and rooms. You take the top floor, Leigh stakes claim to the second floor, and Danny stays on the ground floor. 

You pick a room and enter. The room reminds you of what a royal room must have looked like in old castles. Everything is a greyish blue with silver trim, minus a red velvet couch with ornate, golden trim in the corner of the room near a wardrobe. Speaking of the wardrobe, you walk up to it and open the doors. Inside there are long, lacy dresses, all in the same monochrome as the rest of the house. You take out a light grey dress and look it over. It looks like one of those dresses that a princess would wear in a movie as she ran through a castle corridor, and it seems to be just your size. You put it back where you found it; you can play dress-up later. 

You go and test out the four poster queen bed. You damn near sink into the thing. It's soft and molds to the shape of your body, with the silky sheets swirling around you. A little rich for your blood, but hey. It’s your weekend off, you think you can live it up for a bit. It was pretty late, so you text the group chat that Danny had made for the three of you saying that you were going to sleep. When the other two texted back pretty much the same thing, you took off your pants and snuggled into bed. 

\-----

You wake up and go take a shower. When you get out though, you realize that your luggage isn’t anywhere to be found. Well, your clothes aren’t. Your Switch is on the nightstand along with the bear, and you still have your toothbrush and comb... Oh, well. There are clothes here and now you have an excuse to wear those gorgeous dresses. You pick the same grey one you were looking at last night and put it on. It fits you perfectly. Looking in the silver trimmed mirror, you think you look like royalty...

Your stomach growls, so you head down to the ground floor to see what you have to work with in the kitchen.

Danny and Leigh are already in the huge dining room, sitting across from each other at a large table that could probably seat at least ten people. There’s a plate of pancakes in front of a chair next to Danny, who is happily munching on some, scrolling on their phone. 

What’s weird about this scene, however, is that both of your friends seem to _also_ be dressed in clothes they could only ever dream of wearing. Danny, in an elegant white button down shirt with ruffled cuffs, looking like they came right out of an old Victorian painting. Leigh is wearing a long, black, velvety dress with a nice little corset. Both look at you and smile, though you aren’t sure if it's a nervous smile or not. 

“Hey, random question,” Leigh starts, “Do either of you have your clothes?”

You and Danny laugh a bit. 

“Obviously not, but I’m not going to complain.” Danny says. Which, yeah, fair enough. 

The three of you decide to just write it off as some weird coincidence and just have a good time together. You bring your Switch down and the three of you play for hours together, laughing and being near each other again. 

After a while, Danny and Leigh decide that it’s question time. They ask you all kinds of questions about Lukas and your job, and some general questions on how you’re doing. 

“Lukas is.. I mean, he’s tall and just kind of plain looking? Nothing really stands out, I guess.” You say. Which isn’t a lie, Lukas really did tend to just blend into everyone or whatever wall he was standing near. 

Although they weren’t happy with that answer, they knew they weren’t going to get any more info out of you on your boss, so you went back to playing games and chatting about whatever thoughts crossed your minds until nightfall. 

\-----

You wake up to your phone vibrating violently. You sit up and lean over to grab it off the nightstand and see that Danny is calling. You groan, but answer. “Dude it’s like two in the morning what do you want,”

“Someone just pulled up to the house. There's someone here.” 

Yeah, that fully wakes you up. You blink a couple times to try and process the information and let out a slightly nervous laugh. “There’s no way. There’s no driveway, no one could pull up here in a car.” 

Danny INSISTS that someone is outside, though, even saying that they saw the headlights. You sigh and tell them that you’re on your way downstairs and that they can explain more in depth when you’re there. 

Danny takes a good ten minutes to explain that they were up because they hardly ever get any sleep and then saw headlights shining in through the huge window in the room and heard the car pull up. 

“Okay, okay. I’ll go outside and see if anyone's here, but I seriously don’t think there is.” 

Danny nods and calls Leigh to ask them to come down to their room while you go outside.

You make your way outside, and much to your surprise, there’s a black car parked in front of the house. You try to peek into the tinted windows as the woods start to get foggy. Peter Lukas steps out of the car and gives you that Lukas Smile. 

“Oh, uh, hello, Mr. Lukas! I’m sorry if this is rude of me to ask, but what are you doing here?” You ask, suddenly very conscious of the fact that you’re standing barefoot in navy silk shorts and a matching short sleeve button-up sleepshirt in front of your boss. 

“Oh, just here to check in. Having a good time with your friends, I hope?” He asks. You doubt he really means any of it; just running through the normal pleasantries of a conversation. 

“Y-yeah. Yes, we’re fine. We’re having a great time catching up. Thank you for letting us stay here.” You start to fiddle with your fingers. 

Peter smiles and nods, gets back into the car, and drives away, taking the fog with him. You exhale, gently smack your cheeks a couple times, and head back inside. 

The second you return to Danny’s room you’re bombarded with questions. 

“WAS SOMEONE HERE? HE WOODS GOT REALLY FOGGY I COULDN’T SEE OUT THE WINDOW. WAS IT YOUR BOSS? IS HE HOT?!” Your friends ask simultaneously. 

You laugh and say, “Yes, it was my boss and I’m not entirely sure how to answer that last question? But everything’s fine, he just wanted to know how we were.” 

Leigh and Danny share a look, but it’s too early in the morning to try to super-sleuth any info out of you, so the three of you part ways and go back to your rooms.

\----

You wake up the next morning and run your normal routine, but as you emerge from the bathroom, you notice that the big fancy couch has slightly moved. You stop dead in your tracks. You don’t remember ever touching the couch, which makes you worry just a bit. 

You get dressed in another monochrome dress and head downstairs to eat with your friends. However, when you make it into the dining room, they’re both looking at the kitchen as if they’ve just seen a ghost, which makes you worry Even More. 

Whether out of stupidity or bravery, you silently head into the kitchen to investigate.

And there, puttering around the kitchen, humming a tune you can’t quite recall, is Elias Bouchard. 

“Oh!! Uh,, Hi?? Mr. Bouchard??” You stutter out. 

Elias spins on his heel and smiles when his eyes meet yours. “Oh, hello! Peter told me you would be here. Don’t mind me, I’m just here to make sure everything is in its place,” His smile morphs into something more.. malevolent. 

He continues, “You know, I always loved this house. Never much liked the blues, though. I much rather prefer gold.” He winks after he says “gold.”

 _Okay._ **_What The Actual Fuck._ **You literally just stare at him for a solid five seconds, and then start, “Ahah, yeah! Everything is so lovely here! Thank you so much for letting me and my friends stay here, Mr. Bouchard!”

“Of course. Peter said it would be a good thing for you. I’ll be on my way, now.” He starts to head out of the room, but stops in the doorway and gives you one final smile and says, “Oh, and please _do_ call me Elias. ‘ _Mr. Bouchard_ ’ makes me feel old.” And with that, he finally leaves. 

You walk out of the kitchen and stare blankly ahead. 

“So. That was Lukas’ ex-husband.” 

Both Danny and Leigh choke on their food and look at you and yell out a simple “ **WHAT?!** ”

You shake your head slightly and laugh a bit. “Yeah, not entirely sure why he’s here? But okay, I guess? He technically owns the house too, so we can’t really complain.”

The three of you eat breakfast in stunned silence. 

\----

As you’re walking through the house, you pick up a letter that was slid under the door. Unsurprisingly, it was from Peter Lukas. You read the note telling you that you and your friends could stay as long as you liked, and you didn’t have to worry about coming back to work until you were done with the impromptu vacation. 

You read the note to Danny and Leigh, and both were down to stay for a few more days. 

“Huge, nice house with free food and fast Wi-Fi? Hell yeah I’m down to stay.” Leigh said. The three of you laughed and continued on with your day.

\----

About two days into the Extended Vacation, Leigh tells you that they’ve been seeing someone darting around on her floor. 

“I swear I saw someone in my doorway one night and right as I looked at them they took off. I keep feeling like someone’s watching me.” 

And then that night Danny calls you again, explaining that they can’t sleep because they could have sworn that someone was in their room and was Watching them. 

“Danny, no one else is here but us. Mr. Lukas left and so did Mr. B- ...Elias. I’m sure everything's fine.” You say. Danny still makes you walk all the way down their room just to check. 

When you finally make it back up to your room again, you collapse on the bed. Right as you start to bury yourself under the silky sheets, your room gets cold, and fog starts to roll out of the walls. 

_Great, Lukas is here. Perfect,_ you think to yourself. You sit up as the man appears at the foot of your bed. 

“Hello,” 

It takes everything in your power to not roll your eyes. “Hello, Mr. Lukas.” 

The two of you chat for quite some time before you fall asleep. 

\-----

When you wake up the next morning, you recall a rather strange “dream” you had of Peter appearing in your room and talking to you. _Get a grip on yourself, he’s your boss,_ you silently say to yourself. You run your left hand down your face, and huh. _Wait_ . _Something feels cold?_

You look down at your hand, and there on your ring finger is a thick, silver band with intricate, weaving patterns and a deep blue sapphire embedded right in the middle. 

Your first immediate thought is _Wedding Ring_ , but you instantly change it to _I was probably just playing dress up and forgot to take it off._ You settle on that answer because you like that MUCH better than the other one.

After running your morning routine, you go to eat breakfast. You walk into the dining room and see Leigh and Danny, so you start to say good morning, until you see Elias Bouchard. 

Elias is idly chatting with Danny, who seems to be absolutely enthralled in whatever he’s saying, being as though you can practically see hearts in their eyes. Leigh, however, looks like they’re about to jump out the nearest open window. 

Elias looks away from Heart-Eyed Danny for a second and makes eye contact with you, and that grin from the other day returns. 

“Good morning, I was just talking to Danny here,” His gaze slides down to the silver ring on your finger, and he’s across the room with your hand in his in an instant. “What a nice ring. Silver with sapphire, correct? You know, the Lukas’ simply _adore_ sapphires. In fact, they usually propose with silver bands with sapphires.. Much like the ring you have here.”

He locks eyes with you and his grin turns downright venomous. You jerk your hand back out of his. 

“I’m sorry, I was looking through the jewelry in my room last night before I went to sleep. I didn’t know it meant something that serious, I’ll take it off.” You say.

Elias’ grin somehow grows as he says “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it.” and trots away, out of the room.

Danny seems to be glaring daggers at you before you look at them and stumble a bit. This snaps them back from.. Whatever they were thinking about, and Leigh gets up to take you to the table.

“So what's up with the ring?” Leigh asks, looking at the ring along with Danny. 

“As I said, I must have just forgotten to take it off after having a little fashion show,” you start, but Danny looks up from the ring and says “Bullshit. You hate sleeping with jewelry on, you always have.”

You sigh, because of course they knew that. You had to tell the truth... Or at least a version of it. 

“Uhm, I had a dream last night? Lukas was in my room and we were just... chatting? But he brought up needing a new.... heir, I guess, to the Lukas Family. He said he wanted someone who knew about the company, knew how to run it, and was good at it.” You explained. This wasn’t entirely a lie, but you did leave out the bit where he was really looking to create another avatar of the Lonely, and the easiest way to do that was to marry one into the family. Bring the Lonely to them. 

Both Danny and Leigh looked at you in silence for a couple seconds, and then Leigh says “So you think that it wasn’t actually a dream.”

“No, I don’t think it was.” You admit.

“Hell yeah! Rich husband!” Danny exclaims, but you quickly shake your head. 

“Danny, I love you, but I’m not going to marry my boss just because he’s rich.” 

They roll their eyes and jokingly call you a coward under their breath, but agree to leave it at that. 

\-------

Later that night, while you’re up in your room, you try to take the ring off. You run it under water, you put lotion on your finger, you even try wrapping your finger in string like in all of those bullshit “life hacks.” Nothing seemed to work, and the ring stayed on. 

As you’re sitting on your bed, still trying to get this goddamned ring off, Peter appears. 

“You know, it won’t come off since you accepted it,” Peter. Fuck him. You know you didn’t accept it, and he knows you didn’t accept it. 

“ _OBVIOUSLY_ I didn’t accept it. I think I would have remembered you _proposing_ to me, let alone me saying _yes_.” You spit out. If he’s going to be a bastard, then so are you. 

Peter smiles and looks you dead in the eyes, his icy blue eyes piercing yours. 

“Then take it off.” 

Fine. You will. That’s exactly what you were TRYING to do before he decided to manifest in your room.... Except it wasn’t coming off. You pull and twist and even try to get it off with your teeth, but the ring stays right where it is. Peter's smile widens as he steps forward towards you on the bed. 

“Do you know why I chose you to work for me? You had little to no qualifications, you were still in college for music, of all things, and you didn’t have a single day of any work experience under your belt. And yet, I still chose you. One look at you and I knew that you would be a perfect candidate for the Lonely. You reek of it. You’ve been alone most of your life, yes? Always shoved to the side. Your own family couldn’t even make time for you. So, you decided that it was okay to be lonely. You decided that you liked being alone, and, in a sense, that is _exactly_ what brought you to me. You’ve had an affinity for our God long before you started working for me, and it only made everything easier for me,”

He gets closer to where you sit on the bed. You want to get up and move, you want to do literally anything other and sit in front of him, mouth agape. Peter looks down at you and continues his little monologue.

“As I said, you’re perfect for the Lonely. Join me, join _us_ in the Lonely. You can become powerful. You’d never have to bother with anyone ever again. Never have to be seen again, never worry about _hurting_ anyone, ” 

He extends his hand out to you. “Marry me and become exactly who you’ve always wanted to be.”

You look at his hand, and then meet his eyes. Powerful? That sounds nice. Never to be seen again. Never _hurt_ anyone again. Never hurt _yourself._ You look at the intricate lines on the silver band on your left hand, right where it should be. You chuckle lightly and look back up at Peter Lukas, that shit-eating grin still plastered on his face, and place your hand in his.

“Alright, Lukas. I’ll do it. _I accept._ ” 

**Author's Note:**

> Ahah sorry to leave on a cliffhanger, I have a tendency to continuously rewrite things. I'm not sure how many chapters this'll be, but it'll be at least one more. Also, directly after this is a,,, Not Family Friendly Scene, but I SUCK at writing stuff like that, so maybe it'll be a treat for whenever I finish this.


End file.
